Duchy of Warsaw

The Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1806-1813), known contemporarily as Poland, was a client state of the French Empire that was founded in 1806 after the Liberation of Warsaw. With Michal I of Poland as its ruler, the Grand Duchy was a close ally of France that remained loyal to Napoleon I until Russian and Prussian allied forces reoccupied Poland in 1813.

History
In 1806, the crown of Prussia moved their capital to Warsaw after the fall of Berlin to the army of Napoleon I of France during the Napoleonic Wars. Warsaw's populace was unhappy under the rule of the German royal family and were already hostile to the conscription introduced to the Prussian fiefs that year during the Fourth Coalition. The French Marshal Michel Ney and 9,800 French troops captured Warsaw in late September 1806, driving out Gebhard von Blucher's 21,700 Prussian troops. The city, made up of 4,367,157 people as of that time, was 100% Catholic, and opposed to the Protestant House of Hohenzollern. The French emperor Napoleon believed that Poland deserved its own country, so he persuaded Polish nobles to declare independence from Prussia and draft a constitution. The Polish nation was ruled by Grand Duke Michal I of Poland.

Poland was feeble and had meagre wealth, and traded with the French Empire. They were isolated from other nations in Europe economically, but they were loyal to France and became their protectorate. Poland's Polish Legions served under France as auxilliary units, and in 1807 they declared war on the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire after persuasion from France. They defeated a small Russian invasion force near Lodz in 1807 but did little more fighting than that. They relied on Marshal Ney to defend their lands from attack in the 1812 Russian Campaign, as their armies were suffering from the cold.

The Grand Duchy of Warsaw acquired Galicia, Volhynia & Podolia, and Lithuania from France after they conquered the regions from Russia in a smart strategy by Napoleon; resistance to French rule would be quieted if given to another nation, so the people would be happier under France's ally. Poland had 10,277,708 people by early April 1812.

The end came to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw when Russian forces occupied the city in January 1813. After the Congress of Vienna and the Fourth Partition of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw fell into Prussia's hands once more and the rest of the country was absorbed by Russia.